In many industries today, such as the avionics and automotive industries, complex and costly electrical components, systems and subsystems, as well as the electrical power systems powering these components, are interconnected by many bundles of conductors, typically wires, with each bundle including a plurality of wires. Although each wire is typically surrounded by insulation, or sheathing, such wires can become faulty. In this regard, as the wires age, the insulation can breakdown and chaff. In such instances, the wires can contact other wires or other conductive structures, such as framework. Also, strands in aging wires can begin to separate and tear due to vibration, shock and stress on the wires. Stress due to pinching, rubbing, moisture, corrosion, excessive heat and/or lightening strikes also pose risks that can lead to wire damage. Further, tight fitting connection points within connectors can loosen over time when subjected to the same environmental conditions as the conductors, and when subjected to numerous connects and disconnects due to replacement and maintenance of the electrical components, systems, subsystems, and the electrical power systems.
As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, when the insulation surrounding the wires breaks down or chaffs, or the wire otherwise becomes faulty, undesirable electric arcs or other wire breakdown can occur at one or more locations along the wires, which can lead to breaks or shorts in the system. It will also be appreciated that in many instances, the location of such arc events or other wire breakdowns can be difficult to find. In this regard, the location of an arc event or other wire breakdown may be inside of a bulkhead or inside of a wire bundle. Also, an arc event may only brown an area of occurrence without actually burning through or burning the insulation away form the affected wire.
In many instances, detecting and locating the arc event or other wire breakdown can be difficult, if not impossible. In this regard, detecting a fault in the system as being caused by a faulty wire may be difficult in systems that also include complex electrical components, systems, subsystems and power systems. As such, misdiagnosing a fault in the system as being caused by costly electrical components, for example, can result in unnecessary replacement of such components while still failing to correct the fault.
In addition to the difficulty in detecting an arc event or other wire breakdown, locating such an arc event or other breakdown is also difficult. In many instances, the location of the arc event or other breakdown may be in a location that is impossible to visually locate without extracting a wire bundle from the system. However, inspection of many feet of wire within a system can be very time consuming, and in some cases, may place maintenance personnel at risk for injury. Also, most conventional wire testing equipment is cumbersome and requires unique training of maintenance personnel as to how to use the equipment. Use of such equipment also requires that one or more wire bundles be disconnected in order to test the wires. Unnecessary removal of equipment can also be very costly and time consuming, however, and can add to the required time to perform maintenance on the system. Further, many times such connection points are not located in easily accessed locations.